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won't read about it. But there are lines that go back six blocks... .
“There is one allegiance that unites us all, to America, America... . We all salute with
pride the same American flag ... and we are all equal, equal in the eyes of Almighty
God... . We’re equal ... and I want to thank, by the way, the evangelical community, the
Christian community, communities of faith, rabbis and priests and pastors, ministers,
because the support for me, as you know, was a record, not only numbers of people but
percentages of those numbers who voted for Trump ... an amazing outpouring and I will
not disappoint you ... as long as we have faith in each other and trust in God then there is
no goal beyond our reach ... there is no dream too large ... no task too great ... we are
Americans and the future belongs to us ... America is roaring. It’s going to be bigger and
better and stronger than ever before... .”
Inside the West Wing, some had idly speculated about how long he would go on if he
could command time as well as language. The consensus seemed to be forever. The sound
of his own voice, his lack of inhibition, the fact that linear thought and presentation turned
out not at all to be necessary, the wonder that this random approach seemed to command,
and his own replenishing supply of free association—all this suggested that he was limited
only by everyone else’s schedule and attention span.
Trump’s extemporaneous moments were always existential, but more so for his aides
than for him. He spoke obliviously and happily, believing himself to be a perfect pitch
raconteur and public performer, while everyone with him held their breath. If a wackadoo
moment occurred on the occasions—the frequent occasitons—when his remarks careened
in no clear direction, his staff had to go into intense method-acting response. It took
absolute discipline not to acknowledge what everyone could see.
OK Ok
As the president finished up his speech, Richard Spencer, who in less than four months
from the Trump election was on his way to becoming the most famous neo-Nazi in
America since George Lincoln Rockwell, had returned to a seat in the atrium of the
Gaylord Resort to argue his affinity for Donald Trump—and, he believed, vice versa.
Spencer, curiously, was one of the few people trying to ascribe an intellectual doctrine
to Trumpism. Between those taking him literally but not seriously, and those taking him
seriously but not literally, there was Richard Spencer. Practically speaking, he was doing
both, arguing the case that if Trump and Bannon were the pilot fish for a new conservative
movement, Spencer himself—the owner of altright.com and, he believed, the purest
exponent of the movement—was their pilot fish, whether they knew it or not.
As close to a real-life Nazi as most reporters had ever seen, Spencer was a kind of
catnip for the liberal press crowded at CPAC. Arguably, he was offering as good an
explanation of Trump’s anomalous politics as anyone else.
Spencer had come up through writing gigs on conservative publications, but he was
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